SACRAMENTO, CA - The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is poised to receive approximately $301 million in damages from Standard & Poor's (S&P) and parent company McGraw-Hill Financial, the result of settlements in cases against S&P that stemmed from its rating of mortgage-backed and other securities prior to the financial crisis.

The settlement from a suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 State Attorneys General, announced today by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, will send approximately $176 million to CalPERS. A separate settlement of CalPERS' individual suit will give the fund approximately $125 million.

"This money belongs to our members and will be put back to work to ensure their long-term retirement security," said Anne Stausboll, Chief Executive Officer for CalPERS. "We thank the Attorney General Kamala Harris and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as our own legal team, for their work on these cases."

This settlement resolves charges against S&P in CalPERS' individual suit for losses CalPERS sustained from investments in three structured investment vehicles that also collapsed during the financial crisis. However, it does not resolve the same charges against Moody's Investors Service in that case.

CalPERS has recovered approximately $900 million, to date, from settlements related to investment losses sustained during the financial crisis.

For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their lifework in public service. Our pension fund serves more than 1.7 million members in the CalPERS retirement system and administers benefits for nearly 1.4 million members and their families in our health program, making us the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S. CalPERS' total fund market value currently stands at approximately $293 billion. For more information, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.